Archive for the ‘thoughts’ Category
PAIN
Before I share how Kimberly and I grew in our wonderful, painful, scary and supportive relationship, I need to give some context regarding our perspective on coping mechanisms.
All of us are wounded because we are born into a broken world with broken people and broken relationships. In order to survive emotionally we develop methods for protecting ourselves. These include the happy face, the sad face, the angry face, the cute face to hold off the dis-grace of others. We use control, manipulation, confrontation, and every other form of avoidance (procrastination, withdrawal, acquiescence, drugs). The list goes on. We use these methods unwittingly, settling into a pattern that works best for each. Many children would be emotionally destroyed if they found no means to cope.
I was at one time convinced that coping strategies were evil because they shielded us from the truth and taught us to live a lie. They do shield us from the truth, but this is not necessarily an evil. As Jack would say, “You can’t handle the truth!” or in Jesus’ words, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.” Our coping mechanisms act as crutches, and if we see them as such, we can slowly mend and get back on our feet. The problem comes when we either deny the injury and pretend we have no crutch or stop going to physical therapy because it is too painful and decide we’ll just sign up for a disability pension. I used to try talking people out of their coping mechanisms, kick their crutches out from under them so to speak, until I realized how powerfully beneficial these protective shields are.
My major coping mechanism for feeling better about myself is trying harder. I thought I was practicing discipline, obedience, godliness, but increased effort was really my means to block a sense of shame and unworthiness. I only discovered this truth because my method of coping didn’t “work” sufficiently–I still felt too much like a failure. The more energy I used to escape my negative feelings, the more I realized it wasn’t working, that I could never make it work.
Once I realized that this was a coping mechanism, I tried to “overcome” it. It was a lie that I had to cast out… only it had stopped deceiving me once I recognized it for what it was. When I realized it was a crutch, I could use it as a crutch. For instance, I feel inordinately bad about failing to meet expectations (the inordinate part is a major clue). When I did not recognize this as a coping strategy, it controlled me subconsciously. Now that I realize it is a crutch, I am tempted to throw it down, but the problem is not so much my behavior (trying harder) but the reason behind it–working to earn my worth.
The Dark Hand of Shame
So my second temptation is to maintain my hard effort while changing the underlying thought patterns, but the effort itself supports the wrong mindset. I am running late for a meeting, and as I drive I tell myself, “It’s okay. Everyone is sometimes late. Calm down,” but all the while I am driving like Jehu. I find that I can’t maintain the same level of diligence without operating out of a sense of urgency, a drivenness that comes from my insecurities. The more I try to give myself a break, the less I meet expectations, and the worse I feel about me. These voices of condemnation have indoctrinated me and shaped my feelings, and barring a miracle, it will take a long process of reorienting my perspective. In the meantime I do not have the emotional resources to simply stop all effort to meet others’ expectations and hold back the resulting flood of shame. I would be overwhelmed by the voices against me feeding my shame. My coping mechanism allows for my frayed emotions to be soothed as I slowly push into my fear and break free.
So I take baby steps, put a little weight on the foot. I put in a little less effort while working to offload the shame that I would normally feel, turning a little more towards grace. I share with others my fears so that their power is reduced. I find gracious people to support my faltering faith. And slowly I find myself growing whole from this deep wound. Healing of long established problems, both physical and emotional, takes a lot of time, gentleness to the injury, support and protection.
When I last shared about Kimberly and me, I left an important point untouched. Are there not certain responsibilities that are moral in nature? Is my wife not required to be monogamous? Is it ever right for me to hit her? For the relationship to work (any relationship), do we not need some moral standards on which we can insist, a moral code of conduct?
Let me begin by saying that I believe all intentional acts are moral. Everything we do and how we do it is affected by our faith, love, humility, and the like. Even things we do with no apparent moral content are choices to do this and not something “better.” So perhaps the question is rather: are some moral choices “beyond the pale,” so significant that the relationship cannot simply absorb the behavior and continue on more or less as it was but must be addressed and worked through. To reorient the question in this way, however, moves it from a legal question of right and wrong and rather asks what will hurt or benefit our relationship. Relationship becomes central, and law becomes its servant (as Jesus said). 
Instead of saying, “You must stop this because it is against the law,” or even, “You must stop this because it hurts me,” we simply say, “When you do this it hurts me,” because if we force or manipulate them to change, it will undermine the genuineness of our connection. For important relationships, this step is just the beginning of an ongoing discussion and a doorway into deeper mutual and self understanding, acceptance, and trust. That is not to suggest I have no recourse if I am being hurt, but if relationship is primary, the solution does not lie in controlling the other person.
I am ultimately not accountable for their choices, but for my own. I am responsible to see that my own needs are met in a healthy way, whether my friend supports me or not. My needs determine where I draw the boundary line in our relationship, and my friend’s needs determine where he draws the line. If he cannot respect my boundaries, then I will take measures to protect my boundaries because I must respect myself and my needs whether he does or not. This is not a judgment of my friend’s inadequacies or of my inadequacies (as though he doesn’t care enough or I am too needy). We may both be doing the best we can, but not have the capacity to make the relationship work.
This was the huge distinction between my (former) perspective and Kimberly’s. I thought the only legitimate basis for boundaries was the law. If you lie to me, you are wrong; you must stop it, end of story. If you cheat me, you are wrong and must stop it. If you hurt me, you must stop it. I would use my relationship to blackmail their compliance, communicating with my behavior, “If you want to feel good with me again, you must change.” With this approach, determining who was at fault was fundamental to resolving relational conflict.
Basing such boundaries on my own personal needs was just selfishness. But when Kimberly did, I could very clearly see she was not selfish. She cared very much for my needs, whether she could accomodate them or not, and this confused me. Every selfish person I know subtly or blatantly shows disregard for my needs. Kimberly was saying in essence, “I do not have the emotional resources to care for all my own needs and all yours as well. If any of your needs go unmet, it is very unfortunate, and we will try to find the resources of support you need, but I can only give from what I have. You cannot ask me to go into debt in order to pay off your debt. I cannot ultimately take responsibility for your unmet needs.”
Of course, this was not one straightforward, simple talk we had. We both agonized over the emotional turmoil that sprang from our conflicting needs. Let me give an example that plagued us for years… in the next post.
This interaction occurred several days ago on Facebook with a friend who got a brief response from me after she posted a quote. You can see she is very gracious and open. I have changed the names for privacy’s sake. Our FB interaction is followed by a personal message I wrote to her.
Jennifer: “You either pass on your fears or your faith” to think about…
Janathan: sometimes how I express my faith stirs up your fears and my fears expressed calm your fears. to think about.
Jennifer: good point Kent, still reflecting on your comment. My initial thoughts on the area of fears … sometimes expressing or admitting our fears ‘demystifies’ them, & I can see value in that,.. also hearing others admit their own fears helps me realize i’m not the only one… I think what I appreciate about the above quote is the thought of being able to ‘transform’ a paralyzing fear into a faith action. Rather than being immobilized by fear, moving towards trusting God with it. Fear does not come from Him… whatcha think??
FAITH CAN MAKE YOU SMILE!
Janathan:I think I’m wary of what seems over-simplification to me, assuming solutions when I haven’t taken sufficient time to fully understand the emotional dynamics at work (a definition of “pat” answers). We might say ‘love’ and ‘faith’ are simple, clear, easy to identify… until we start realizing how common misconceptions are, confusing love with lust, possessiveness, admiration, etc. I think we have to agree that all emotions were created by God and of high worth. God created fear in us, and the Bible regularly commands us to fear. My biggest fears tell me something really important about my own woundedness, and if I try to simply control this fear with ‘faith” and not understand my deeper heart issues, I think it causes real personal and relational problems. What is your perspective?
Janathan: On the other hand, one can be equally disrespectful of one’s own feelings by exacerbating them rather than listening to them (though I think conservative Christians tend to err on the former side… as one well-known writer titled a book “Emotions, the Believer’s Greatest Enemy.”
Jennifer: hmmm i don’t like simplistic answers either.. and will often ‘chew’ on a thought for a long time (including your quote 🙂 but at the same time, I’ve had to face some of my biggest fears,… and in the midst of those fears have often found myself unable to do anything else with but transfer them to God. “perfect love casts out all fear” is a concept i don’t fully understand yet it seems to involve trusting the Source of Love to such an extent that we have nothing that’s too big for us to face. The kind of ‘fear’ you refer to,.. i would associate with a respectful fear.. and not an immobilizing fear. appreciate your thoughts..
HIDDEN UNDERGROUND
Janathan: I agree, Jennifer, sometimes fears are so intense we have to find a means of calming them before we can begin to understand them. I think there are many ways of doing this, such as adding a safety net or sharing our fears with someone who is safe for us (this is an act of faith as well). I know I have had numerous misconceptions of faith in my past, misconceptions I still struggle with. One of the biggest ones was to use “faith” to shame my feelings, in which case my feelings went underground, seeming to be conquered, but simply adding another layer of distance between myself and my heart.
Jennifer: hmmm good points. I’ve had to work through ‘fear of admitting fears’…. because as I looked back on my life i realized that the fears i ‘verbalized’ (admitted out loud) were exactly the ones that i ended up having to face in reality. 😦 Still working thru that one, but I think one of the lessons I’ve come away with, was that God wanted me to experience His peace even in the midst of my biggest fears (and I did,… for the most part! 🙂 From what I can tell, fear doesn’t GO AWAY.. we just learn to manage it. I’ve prayed endlessly for God to take away my fear of flying.. but it’s still there. What I had to face was my fear of dying instead.. With cancer, I had to face my fear that His plans weren’t good ones (from my perspective),.. but as I look back,.. so much GOOD came from having it.
Beth: Such thought-provoking comments. You’ve both alluded to the idea that fears have a variety of sources. Yes, fear can be emotionally based, but it can also be based on objective facts and truth. Jesus said “… I am the truth…”. Truth is his very essence and thus he also knows all. I’ve learned that I can trust my God more than I can trust myself. We can all be easily manipulated (emotionally) and we can also manipulate others and we can even manipulate ourselves. But God can not be manipulated. Thus I choose to put my trust in Him who is truth, and pray that he gives me the wisdom to discern the source of my fears and take control of all my thoughts. (2 Cor 10:5 “…destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”)
Jennifer: thanks for your input Beth… i like the verse about ‘taking your thoughts captive’ … i think it fits the discussion. Though I have to admit.. i’m a very practical person… and as much as I understand the ‘exercise’ of doing that,.. i still don’t understand what are the practical, tangible results.? In other words,.. what actually changes in relationship to our fears?
Beth: Making our thoughts “captive and obedient” to Christ is definitely practical, with tangible & transformational results. Emotionally based fears are often reinforced by our thought life. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim 1:7). It seems that fear and faith can not co-exist. Paul repeatedly tells his readers we have real power to control our thought-life, leading to transformational living. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom 12:2). As we renew/change our thinking, our emotions and behaviour will realign accordingly. When our focus is Christ and his attributes, it will result in our minds being filled with his presence and peace (Phil 4:8-9). Faith and fear do not co-exist.
Kent McQuilkin: Ah, Beth, what a very different view you and I have on emotions and faith!
Jennifer: Will need to reflect on your thoughts Beth… Sometimes it just takes time for a truth/principle to move from my head to my heart,.. and then into action. 🙂 Curious about your view on emotions and faith, Kent. 🙂
Wow, Jennifer, where do I even begin? I understand Beth’s view, I was raised with that view. There are good and bad emotions and we must choose the good and refuse the bad. The good emotions are telling us the truth about the world and God, and the bad emotions are telling us lies. We encourage the good emotions and discourage the bad emotions by thinking the right thoughts about each, often using Scripture as the basis. We talk ourselves out of the bad emotions and into the good ones. This is how faith works to free us from bad emotions–I keep telling myself the truth until I believe it (and truth comes from propositions, not from feelings, which can’t be trusted), and as I slowly believe more, my bad emotions dissolve.
In a sense I believe and follow this approach for superficial matters. As everyone knows, emotions can be very changeable and fleeting (which makes us reluctant to trust them). If Kimberly does something that slightly irritates me, I throw some “truth” at my feelings (“she also has to forgive me for my irritating behavior” or “she’s just tired”) and let it go. I can do this because I am secure in our relationship—I know she cares deeply for me and respects me and my feelings. It is just an emotional hiccough I feel. However, if the feeling persists, I know it is telling me something I need to hear.
To suppose that emotions are fickle and unreliable because they constantly fluctuate is a serious misunderstanding I think. What I see with my eyes constantly changes—I see a chair, then a table, then you, then my book… does this mean my visual perception is unreliable? On the other hand, if I kept staring at the chair and it turned into a cat and then into a pecan pie, I would have major doubts about my visual perception. Just like my eyes, my emotions are “reading” constantly changing situations, so that to be consistent, they must constantly fluctuate, but when that situation returns, that emotion returns. Emotions are remarkably consistent and reliable measures of how our situations are impacting us. We realize this when we use all our reasoning powers to change our feelings about someone, and one look from them brings those feelings flooding back. In other words, our emotions are telling us something profoundly true and accurate, stubbornly so, though we may misinterpret them easily if we have been raised in a culture that teaches us to doubt them.
I think that is where we get thrown off the track. We assume that our emotions are measuring the facts about the current situation, and this consistently proves false. But that is like blaming the gas gauge for giving the wrong mileage. Our emotions can tell us things about the current situation that our minds cannot (we call it intuition), just like our gas gauge can help us estimate how many miles we have driven. But that is not their purpose. Emotions primarily tell us about our own hearts, not about external situations. This was very hard for me to grasp at first. I thought my anger against a friend measured his guilt. It doesn’t. It simply says something is going on in my heart that I need to figure out. Whether he is guilty or not is a very different issue, related but different.
If my emotions are given to me by God, they are all good and valuable when treated as they were designed. But if I suppose some are bad, then I will refuse to listen to them, perhaps quite effectively drowning out their voice, the voice of truth. I may credit Biblical thinking and faith for this result, but I feel strongly that such an approach ultimately hurts rather than helps me. If anything, I have discovered that faith can do the opposite—it can give me the safety and courage to identify and listen to my unwanted emotions instead of pushing them away. I think that blaming and fixing my emotions is much like using my finger to push the gas gauge needle to “full”.
It is true that I want to be free of those feelings of fear, anger, sadness (and even joy and peace) that are harmful for me and my relationships, but after failing in a life long effort at using the typical “biblical” approach I described above, I learned that listening to my emotions with compassion and understanding was the only way to discover my true brokenness and needs and take the long term, deep approach for transformation. I put “biblical” in quotes since I find myself now with quite different understandings of verses like “take every thought captive” (ones that do not involve pitting my reasoning against my emotions—wouldn’t it be wonderful if our emotions and intellect could work as partners instead of competitors?)
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
Janathan
At last we come to this. Kimberly and I have needs that conflict–satisfying her need exacerbates mine and vice versa. I could fill a book with examples, literally. Promptness is a high value of mine and we are going to be late, so I am driving fast, but safety is a high value for Kimberly. Whose need gets trumped? She needs to talk and I need to think. She needs a clean car and I need a functional one. She needs us to be more tactful with folks and I need us to be more straightforward. She needs to spend more money and I need to spend less (in certain categories). She may need more together time and I may need more alone time. She’s freezing and I’m burning up.
I was raised to 1) evaluate if this is a true need or just a want 2) if it is just a want (and almost everything was), then sacrifice your desires for the other person 3) if this is not adequately reciprocated and I feel resentment for the “unfairness,” then I hint with my eyes, tone of voice, sighs, coolness, a “joke,” etc. 4) if this does not fix the injustice, then we “talk” about it (which means I tell you in so many words that you are wrong, you apologize and change). This was my understanding of fairness and compromise–in my family we manipulated each other to get the other to meet our needs–and it generally worked, at least for us younger siblings. We made demands of one another, taking responsibility for each others needs instead of taking responsibility for our own. In this environment, personal boundaries were significantly infringed, but the incursions were roughly equivalent, so it was workable. Of course, this only functions in a context where the expectations are set, determined by an authority (our parents). Someone has to settle what is fair if fairness is to be the default standard for behavior. Pushing or choosing for one’s own wants and needs was generally seen as selfish.
I quickly discovered this approach did not work with Kimberly. My system was reciprocation and her system was freely giving with no expectations. She insisted that my expectations did not determine her obligation. If I had a need, it did not mean she had to meet it, because she also had needs and she did not insist that I meet them. She explained the value of healthy boundaries in relationship. She would listen and empathize with my need if I cared to talk about it; she would offer suggestions for how my needs could be met; but if I then pushed her with an “ought,” it would stifle her free love, it would not only wound her, but hurt our relationship, setting it on legalistic grounds rather than on grace. I have needs, my needs are legitimate, she loves me and cares about my needs, but caring about my needs is quite different from caring for my needs. I cannot demand that she neglect herself to serve me (even if I neglected my needs to serve her). My resentment towards her “unfairness” suggested that I was not giving out of love and grace (which expects no reciprocity), but out of a fair-trade agreement.
She told me to only give to her (or compromise) freely, and if my gift had strings attached, I was not ready to give. In that case, she would look out for her own needs. If I say, “I don’t care where we eat,” “You choose where to dine,” “I’ll go where you want,” and this eventually leads to, “Why don’t we ever eat where I want to go?” then I am being dishonest with her and with myself. We should tell one another plainly what we want, and then look for some solution that provides for both our needs (or at least does not block either of us from meeting our own needs). I have learned to trust Kimberly to give me what she can in a healthy way, and whatever is still lacking I take responsibility for instead of placing on her. She trusts me in the same way.
This set things on a very different footing for me. I always assumed my expectations were justified, were self-evident and obvious. If so, then she should change to meet them. Why did Kimberly disagree? I began questioning whether my expectations were self-evident. I always assumed I “needed” to be on time… the what was given and I only had to resolve the how, how can I get her on my schedule. But suppose punctuality is not a necessity or even of high value. Instead of asking what should be done, I started asking why do I feel this way. Why did I have such a high level of anxiety about lateness? I thought I did this out of care for the other person’s time, but in fact I was operating from a fear of what others would think of me. My value depended on others seeing me as dependable, and punctuality was a big part of that evaluation. I tried to control others’ views of me (and thereby my true worth) by being prompt. My feelings cried out that I needed to be on time, but my true need was rather to feel worthy, and I could only satisfy this need by grounding it in something more firm than others’ opinions. I had to learn to be okay with being sometimes tardy, it is human, and part of finding this path into freedom was allowing myself to actually be late. Kimberly’s need for me to drive slower was an invitation to reconsider my own true need.
This was not a smooth, quick, or comfortable transition, and I still tend to drive with narrower safety margins than makes her comfortable. I am a work in progress (as is she), and what matters to her most is not slower driving, but acceptance and support of her feelings (instead of poking fun at her caution or otherwise suggesting there is something wrong with her view). Amazingly, once I was able to segregate my real needs from my false needs, I realized that my greatest need was what Kimberly was so great at giving–empathy and acceptance of my feelings rather than help avoiding my feelings by “fixing” the situation. If simple compromise works because neither of us feels very strongly about the matter, then we simply adjust for one another because we care. But if either of us feels an ongoing discomfort with this solution, we bring it up for discussion, not to figure out a better solution (and so avoid the true issue), but to uncover the real unmet need that is agitating our feelings.
BTW, Kimberly is a punctual person, she just is not driven to it as I am.
HOLY PEOPLE WANT LESS!
By suggesting an alternative to wants-versus-needs thinking, which seems to pit rationality against emotions, I am not suggesting that no difference exists between needs. Surely some needs are more important than others. I want to challenge the notion that there is some simple objective way of determining my needs, and that, being objective, it’s evaluation requires no input from emotions. (As a side note, we seem to have this odd notion that our emotions were badly damaged in the Fall, but that our intellect came through nearly unscathed, so that we can trust the latter more than the former). There are things I clearly need, some for my body (food, water, shelter) and some for my soul (love, interaction, forgiveness). Those things I need for my soul should never be forfeited for the sake of another, because I am foremost responsible for my own soul, and I never do well by another when I forfeit myself. God is responsible for their needs.
I don’t mean that we never forgo some food for the soul as a benefit to another… just like skipping a meal, such choices are good for us if they are in the context of a steady, nutritional diet. The key I think is my own health, for which I am responsible. One can be spiritually glutinous or spiritually anorexic… in the first, the intake regularly exceeds the output and in the second the output regularly exceeds the intake. Both are bad for the soul. The first is characteristic of those we would call “selfish,” but is also characteristic of those who are starving (or feel as though they are starving). The selfish individual has the emotional resources to do more for others, but chooses not to, while the starving has no such resources. None of us knows another’s heart well enough to make this determination about them.
I Know What I Need!
My effort to bring false and true needs into the discussion fits here. I believe the problem with those who are “selfish,” is not usually that they imbibe too much or more than their share, but that they fill up on Twinkies and Pringles, and since this does not meet their true need and they remain hungry, they continue to stuff more in to fill that gnawing hunger. No one turns to alcohol to satisfy a need for alcohol. They do it to reduce the pain from true needs that are languishing. It is easy to make folks feel better by satisfying their false needs (it makes the giver feel better as well, so we are inclined to do it without thinking), and sometimes it is the best approach for many reasons, but I think it is good for us to realize we are not providing a remedy for their genuine needs. Their unsatiated need will remain, stimulating their desire for another bag of popcorn.
Another Piece?
I could give a hundred examples in my own life of misunderstanding my needs and trying to satisfy my hunger with plastic pizzas and wooden fruit–the hungrier you are the harder you chew. It has a profoundly disrupting spiritual effect in one’s life. I have had a desparate need for acceptance all my life. I felt unworthy as I was and thought I could not be loved unless I “got my act together.” I could not trust any acceptance that came from someone who tried to overlook my faults, because such acceptance was undeserved. My felt need was for holiness… greater and purer and more constant than I had so that I could be worthy, but no matter how much higher I climbed, my thirst for acceptance remained, driving me deeper into the desert. My growth in “holiness” (as I undertsood it), instead of fulfilling me, was actually dragging me away from realizing and satisfying my real need, which was to discover and embrace God’s grace. I’m glad my search was a cul-de-sac or I would still be climbing that mountain.
FEED ME SEYMOUR!
All of us are concerned that when we give others enough freedom, they will take advantage of us. They will think only of themselves, and we will get left with too few resources–whether money, time, attention, benefits, or what have you. It is a realistic concern–watch any playground with children (… or adults), but our desire for boundaries against the incursions of others seems to smack against the command to love, to be unselfish. We have often tried to sort through this tension by making a distinction between “need” and “want.” What we need is legitimate to fight for, but what we want should often go unfulfilled for the sake of another.
I think our distinction between need and want slowly worked itself into a spectrum represented at one end by absolute necessity (what we need to survive) and at the other end by mild wishes. We tend to assign “needs” an objective value (actual need) and “wants” a subjective value (just a feeling) and to downplay our desires. No matter how intense your feelings, I will judge them as only a “want” if they do not pass the objective test for “needs.” My attitude will be “get a grip!”
With this approach I determine how much to give or support someone by making an objective comparison between their need and my own need. When someone asks for money, I immediately consider whether they “need” this or just “want” it. I compare their level of need to my own, and if their need is greater, I feel obligated to help out. If I don’t give, I feel under a great deal of pressure to justify my decision (they don’t deserve it, they are not my responsibility, it would be bad for them, etc.). But this rarely works to fully relieve my conscience, so I feel guilty of selfishness. I tend to assume the equation: their (genuine) need + my ability = my obligation.
THIS IS NOT A NEED!
Given this perspective, I must constantly evaluate whether my desire is a “need” or a “want.” But I find that nearly impossible to determine except for the extremes (physical survival and slight desire). When I take this route, I find myself using “objective” evaluation of my need to constantly critique my subjective feelings, my wants. The more it is tied to my feelings, the more likely I am to be dismissive so that my self-care is constantly under attack. The more conscientious I am, the more I tend to minimize my own desires, downgrading them from needs to wants, interpreting self-care as selfishness (a lack of adequate concern for others). But shushing our feelings is a pretty sure way of losing touch with our true heart. God gave us emotions for a reason, so it seems to me ignoring them is going to get us into trouble (I know it has done a great deal of damage to me personally).
I think the “objective” distinction between needs and wants as I presented it here can be a dangerous interpretation of selfishness. Leaving aside superficial desires that cost me little to miss, I’d like to propose an alternative distinction: true wants/needs versus false ones. The stronger my desire, the more likely it is to have its roots in an important need, and it is vital for myself and my relationships–for health and growth–to satisfy that need. Regardless of how trivial my desire looks from an “objective” view, my emotions are cluing me in to an important need.
The major problem I find with this perspective is that I often misconstrue my true needs. I mistake applause for love, success for worth. I mistake conformity for community, popularity for acceptance… and the list goes on. My main problem is not selfishness that results in satisfying my desires, but confusion that results in “satisfying” my false desires and neglecting my true ones. If I am hungry for applause, it is a genuine and important hunger that is calling out, but the true need is not approval, so no amount of praise will satisfy my hunger (as no amount of dry leaves will satisfy my empty belly). I may think the solution is to “humble” myself and stop seeking applause (to basically deny that I have a need). I tried that all my life and my genuine hunger remained. What finally worked for me was identifying my true need (that was tricky) and finding a means to satisfy it with God’s help.
I would like to suggest that it is never a good moral decision to sacrifice my true needs/desires. I am ultimately responsible for my own health and growth, to receive the grace of God for my needs. God, not I, is responsible to provide the grace for everyone’s individual needs. I may or may not be a channel of his grace to others, but it would be morally wrong for me to choose to forgo meeting my own true needs so as to meet another’s needs. That is not selflessness, it is self abuse, and it confounds God’s role with mine. I suggested earlier that physical survival was an obvious case of objective need, but is it truly? I believe I can sacrifice my life for another without injuring myself, but I may never choose to sacrifice my soul. I believe we are best alerted to our deepest objective needs by our emotions rather than our logic, and through reflection in the context of true community we discover their true nature.
HAPPY HAPPY, JOY JOY!!
I suppose an illustration at this point might help clarify our marital dance. I have many to choose from! Like most American women, Kimberly has a higher standard of cleanliness (or lower comfort level with dirt) than her husband. So how do we determine what is “fair”? Do we decide that her standard is “right,” and that I should do 50% of this? Do we decide that my standard is right, and that if she wants it to be cleaner, the rest is up to her? Or do we settle on something in between so that both of us are doing more than we feel is fair? There are many other considerations–who has more time or energy, which tasks do each of us prefer or hate, how much emotional cost is involved, is resentment building up because either of us feels the other does not care enough about our feelings to do more?
We try to talk… or rather I try to negotiate and Kimberly tries to share (I’m a fixer, she’s a relater). It seems to me completely useless to clean underneath or behind the sofa. No one sees it, not even us! But she feels it! It bothers her. Now here comes the rub. When she tells me about her emotional needs, she is simply sharing. She just wants me to understand, listen, empathize. She’s not indirectly asking me to change, but that is what I hear: her expectations, what she thinks I should do. That’s what “sharing needs” always meant in my family of origin if the person we were telling could actually do what we wanted. So I argue against her unreasonable demands (as I see it), but she is not coming from a place of expectations, so my resistance to her sounds like I am rejecting her feelings, telling her that she should not be bothered by the dog hair under the loveseat.
She completely separates sharing about her needs from my obligations regarding her needs, but I instinctively unite them, so the only way I have of protecting myself from demands that seem unreasonable is to talk down her feelings (which are loaded with expectations as I suppose). If I could separate empathy from obligation as she does, I could listen compassionately without feeling threatened that my needs are being shoved aside. But my feelings are so deeply ingrained around this relational dynamic, that even after I intellectually grasp where she is coming from, even after believing she really is not imposing expectations (both of which took years for me), I still struggle with my deeply ingrained emotional reactions.
However, the more we talk, the more our mutual understanding and acceptance grows. Since I am released from a sense of obligation, I have much more emotional space to empathize, and my love for her responds easily and gladly in this context of freedom, vulnerability, and trust. Now I can choose to clean under the sofa and actually feel good about it, because I am motivated by love rather than obligation. Still, we give each other the right to take care of our own needs, so if I feel burdened by the thought of vacuuming, I let it go, and Kimberly, because she genuinely has no expectations, is glad for me to do so. This does not mean I love her less, I simply have a need just now that it would hurt me to neglect. We have learned that if we do not honor our own needs, we not only suffer personally, but ultimately hurt our relationship as well.
Cleaning under the sofa might be a trite issue for many, and if the feelings it raises are slight, then resolution is easy. It doesn’t really matter who cleans, and the issue of “fairness” is rather meaningless since nobody is asking the question. The real conflict for us was not over a five minute cleaning job. That was simply a porthole into the deep waters, the very fundamental question of every human heart, “Do you care? Am I loved? Do my needs matter to you?” Emotions are surprisingly consistent and accurate in telling us what really does matter to us, though the “why” is often hard to interpret and is often best teased out in a supportive, accepting relationship. I am so incredibly blessed to have such a relationship.
SORRY! IT'S ALL MY FAULT!
I am very thankful that some of our core values as a culture still have much of their life from the deep roots of Christianity. We have a long history of befriending and helping those who have fought against us. I’m impressed that as a whole we remain so accepting of Islam. Many have commented how 9/11 was a “game-changer,” and it is true since that day I have an easily triggered anxiety about large scale terrorist attacks, almost expecting it to happen. I remember watching on TV as the towers collapsed and the wave of disbelief that washed over me with a new sense of vulnerability. It may have changed us in some significant operational ways, but it did not change our values. 
We were not sucked into intolerance and hatred of Islam or Middle-easterners. As any individual who is attacked by another, we naturally became suspicious and cautious, but as a whole we worked conscientiously and hard at maintaining our value of equality and acceptance. I know I personally worked at learning empathy for the the terrorists and those behind them, to try to see things from their perspective. As a country we have a history of reconciling with our enemies–Germany, Japan, Russia. I love this ability our society has owned of leaving bygones behind instead of teaching every future generation to hate. Of course, we have usually been in the position of winners, which makes such a position so much easier, but we have done so in the case of the Viet Cong as well. In some ways it is a value that is easy and costs little for the powerful and privileged, but it is still an attribute for which I am grateful.
I can also understand the hugely insecure and vulnerable perspective of those without power and the anger springing up from feeling deprived of what they would choose for themselves if they had more control. Like individuals who have little power in a relationship, the only recourse to stand up for themselves is not direct confrontation, but guerrilla warfare. From one angle, perhaps 9/11 did what was intended by the terrorists and was for our ultimate good, an opportunity to see how our positions in power are hurtful to others. Some have suggested that Muslim youth are starting to take a new approach which does not embrace terrorist acts. I hope for all concerned that that is the case, that somehow a new mutual respect, understanding, acceptance, and even support however limited, might characterize our futures.
CAN I PLEASE JUST HAVE THE BONE?
It seems to me that if we do not find in God the ultimate answer to our needs, we become dangerously dependent on others. If I think my wife is the sole channel of God’s grace for any substantial need and she fails me, then my only recourse is to force her compliance. I might cajole, argue, bargain, threaten… there are a hundred ways to get her to “fall in line,” but this manipulation undermines her sincere love.
Genuine love must grow in an atmosphere of freedom, not control. That is frightening because freedom allows my friend to choose to be unloving and uncaring, refusing to help with my needs. If I make no demands, but offer unconditional love, he may take advantage of me, take all I have to offer and give little in return. And if my needs go unmet, I cannot survive. So when I sense a disparity between how much I give and how much I get, I react to protect myself. If I protect myself by giving less, I feel bad for my selfishness, for my lack of generosity, and I feel a distance growing in my heart towards him. So instead I subtly (or plainly) push him to give more.
This approach did not go over well with Kimberly. She felt the pressure of my expectations and recognized the conditionality of my love. When she chose not to do as I wished, I felt unloved and became resentful, critical, and demanding. This in turn made her feel unloved. I tried to pressure her to comply, to prove her care by meeting my expectations. She insisted on a more honest path to resolving our conflict, one that made room for both of our needs and for genuine rather than forced expressions of love.
I thought love was proved by what it gave—if folks didn’t give, they didn’t care—and this was intolerable to me because it inflated my fears of unworthiness. I gave to others with the expectation that they would reciprocate and so prove my lovability. My mind tightly bound together loving motivation and helping behavior, and I desperately needed Kimberly to prove my worth by setting aside her feelings to meet my needs. Through long conversations and consistent responses, Berly expressed her care for my needs without yielding to my pressure to change her behavior (and so abandon her own needs in favor of mine). It took years for me to believe she loved me in spite of not coming to my rescue. I slowly realized that someone can love without helping and help without loving, that sometimes the truest and hardest love is one that does not give when giving would beguile the loved one into a false security.
I wanted to stop feeling my insecurity and Kimberly wanted me to embrace it, understand it, work through it. If she helped me to avoid those feelings, it would undermine our relationship. For her part, she was afraid of my resentment, and wanted to act in a way that would hold it at bay, but she knew living out of that fear would keep her from sharing herself honestly and vulnerably with me. Things might go smoothly between us, but we would be sacrificing substance for façade. Slowly we both stepped into our fears and broke through to a deeper understanding of ourselves and one another, a deeper trust, and a deeper freedom to accept who we are. We encourage and help each other to find a way to meet our needs, but do not take the responsibility for this on ourselves. Of course, sometimes our needs conflict, but that is another story altogether.
I lived the first 40 years of my life with the assumption that if someone had a need I could meet, I was obligated to meet that need. No matter how much I gave, I was still being selfish if I had any resources left for myself. Such a view leads to spiritual and physical self-destruction. In grad school I knew that 12,000 people a day starve to death (no doubt that figure is higher today), so how could I spend any more than the absolute minimum on my own needs? If I used resources for myself that would cause one more person to starve, was I not killing them? Was I less responsible because they were half-way around the world instead of on my doorstep?
With this thought I calculated the cheapest possible way to survive so as to give more money to relief agencies. Since tea or coffee had no nutritional value, I thought drinking it was simply a sin… so was jelly on toast (although it was so dry I used margarine sparingly, or rather a cheaper margarine substitute, and felt guilty for it). I must eat nutritionally, for which my mother gave me the simplest advice as I left for grad school , “Eat one green and one red or orange vegetable a day.” I knew I also needed protein, starch and fruit. The cheapest fruit was to drink orange juice each morning with a piece of toast (starch).
I prepared my dinner one month at a time. The cheapest protein was a chicken whole fryer (39 cents a pound), and the cheapest green and orange vegetables were beans and carrots. At the beginning of the month I would cook one whole fryer, one bag of string beans and one bag of carrots. I then mixed a bit of each into golf ball size clumps, twisted six into a row inside my used bread bags, and froze them, making a month’s supply. I would warm one of these up to put on rice each evening when I came home from school.
I saw time as another resource to share, limiting my sleep to a bare minimum. I lived in Chicago for six years and never visited the famous sites, which seemed an unconscionable waste of time. But I could not strip myself of every resource, so I lived with a pervasive undertone of guilt for not living on less and giving more. That person’s need constituted my responsibility, and the needs of the whole world lay before me to meet at whatever cost to myself. 
Something was deeply wrong with this picture. Whose needs am I responsible to meet? If I shave it down to the bare minimum, I would say I am responsible to meet my spouse’s needs… but is even this true? Doesn’t my wife have many needs that I cannot fulfill? After all, no individual has all the spiritual gifts for meeting another’s needs. The problem lies here–whether I took on the needs of the world or of only one other person, I was still trying to play the role of God, and it was crushing me.
Over time I came to the conclusion that if someone has a need, it is God’s responsibility to meet that need, and he may or may not use me to do it. He is not dependent on my help. It is not the other person’s need which constitutes my responsibility, but the invitation of God to become involved (and he does invite, he doesn’t force). If I choose to live by grace rather than law, then someone else’s need is a potential opportunity rather than an obligation. But whether or not I get involved (and to what extent), it remains completely God’s responsibility to meet that person’s need.
My own wife must ultimately look to God and depend on him to meet her needs. If she makes me the final point of responsibility for her needs, then her needs are going to regularly go unmet and she has no recourse. She is trapped in a life that is unworkable and has no means of escape because she is dependent on me, and I am a flawed creature. She and I must receive the grace of God for ourselves, either directly or through whatever channel he uses. We cannot restrict his grace for us to one channel, not even our spouse. No human relationship was designed to bear such a burden.
Over a long time, I was able to shift the weight of the world (and every individual in it) onto God’s shoulders and off my own. I still struggle to let the burden go, and tend to blame myself if another person’s needs go unmet, but I now know that to carry such a weight will break me. I discovered that I can care without taking responsibility, that mourning the loss of another does not require me to jump in and “save” them. In fact, when I am always in “fix-it” mode, I tend to be distracted from loving and caring, especially if I am pushing myself with obligation rather than letting my involvement flow from a deep settled nest of God’s grace.
My major coping mechanism for feeling better about myself is trying harder. I thought I was practicing discipline, obedience, godliness, but increased effort was really my means to block a sense of shame and unworthiness. I only discovered this truth because my method of coping didn’t “work” sufficiently–I still felt too much like a failure. The more energy I used to escape my negative feelings, the more I realized it wasn’t working, that I could never make it work.
Janathan Grace Reflections 